Gore hopes to build on labor 'bounce'

SEATTLE (AP) - Vice President Al Gore, reveling in the hard-won endorsement of the 13 million-member AFL-CIO, hopes to capitalize on what his campaign considers the equivalent of winning the first big White House primary against Bill Bradley.

Gore, finding himself with cause for celebration after enduring weeks of drooping poll numbers and a presidential campaign that refused to catch fire, chose a labor audience Wednesday for his first road speech after the labor organization voted in Los Angeles to proclaim him labor's favorite son.

Thundering his vow to veto ''in a flash'' any anti-labor legislation that would cross his desk, Gore said America's labor movement will re-energize his bid for president.

He said he'll press his case to union families across the country, especially in the states with early primaries. He described himself as a fearless leader ''with heart,'' and as one who can stand firm against Republicans in Congress and usher in ''the kind of change that works for working families.''

Gore directly challenged the credentials of Bradley, portraying him as a weak-kneed politician who voted for some of the Reagan-Bush budget cuts ''for political survival'' and then walked away from Congress after Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over in the 1994 elections.

Gore said he has a better lifetime voting record for organized labor than Bradley, ''though I represented a right-to-work, southern state where very few unions had a toehold. I swam against the tide because of my beliefs and compiled a better record for organized labor than did my opponent.''

The Reagan-Bush White House demonized labor unions and tried to make ''union busting'' sound virtuous, he said. By contrast, he said, ''I will be a voice for working families. I am pro-union, pro-organizing, pro-working families.''

Gore, who shook up his campaign organization last week and vowed to ''let 'er rip'' in his contest with Bradley, began his day on a high note, with the crucial, and unusually early, blessings of the AFL-CIO.

Union President John Sweeney called Gore's prize ''a very valuable endorsement that really allows for mobilizing 13 million members around the country ... who are looking to support a candidate who has a proven record of addressing working family issues.''

Bradley, who worked furiously to block the endorsement, released a statement after the vote,saying ''my commitment to working men and women and the role that labor can play in their lives is unwavering.''

Gore's first stop afterwards, in the Seattle union hall of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, District 751, was designed to hammer home his strategy of mobilizing union activists.

The Boeing machinists union, with 55,000 members plus retirees, endorsed Gore last week. The labor endorsements ''give him a boost'' both in the state and nationally, said Linda Lanham, political director for the machinists.

Gore, who appeared at two Wednesday evening fund-raisers, also drew a bead on the Republican-controlled Congress for its ''spiteful'' budget confrontations with the White House, ''risky'' plans for big tax cuts and the Senate's rejection of the nuclear test-ban treaty - a vote he called ''an act of almost breathtaking irresponsibility.''